Blinking through his daze, he located me next to the rope and eyed the butter knife in my hand which I had found outside. “Are you…you’re getting us out of here?”
“Yes!”
“Thank you!”
“Woo!”
“I’m going to live!”
“Together!”
The cord split from his movements, and he fell headfirst into the plastic kiddie pool. The bone of his neck snapped on his impel down and his head twisted at an angle that I did not think was natural, and he fell into a slump on the floor.
Unmoving and without sound.
“Upside-down guy?” I prodded his back. “You’re okay, right?”
He was not okay.
After setting the upside-down man free from his restraints and from his life, I went back outside. I searched the streets, probing for a pair of pants.
I did not know the best way to the suburbs. I only had a quick glance at Dig’s wall map in his hideout. My best guess was to keep heading in one direction and eventually I’d hit into the tall grey wall that cuddled the cityarena and from there I could follow the curve of it until I ended up in the suburbs.
But what if Tommy and Fiona were hurt?
What if they were dehydrated and hungry?
What if they needed medical attention?
The last days of the Execution Battle were always the worst. People were dying of dehydration, of injuries, or so starving they took reckless chances to find food. And the largest gangs grew stronger and overconfident, weeding out any strays and weakened people to cull them off before they went back to prison, hoping to make their cells less crowded.
I couldn’t guess where the suburbs were, I had to be smart and know their exact location.
Before I looked for them, I needed to look for directions.
Luckily, I found them.
“Excuse me!” I waved with a huge smile.
Two men with blades fought viciously, stabbing, slicing and cutting each other. Their cries of pain and shouting mingled into the ruckus of their combat. I skipped past them and headed over to the drone junkies who were doing their dance routine to an old hip hop song blaring from a solar speaker. The drone above them hovered midair, filming.
Drone junkies. There were usually three or four in a group. Soulless inmates from all three prisons who became social media famous from fun dance routines. They practiced routines all year in prison and whilst they were in the Battle they tracked down the drones that were filming fights and danced in the background. They became so popular that now they had sponsorships from outside of the prison. Companies would pay them and send gifts to advertise their products and services mid-dance routine. None of the other inmates bothered harming the drone junkies since they brought in regular revenue to the prisons and shared what they made from sponsorships.
The drone junkies dancing were three young men in matching cheerleading skirts, their hair in pig tails, their makeup without blemish.
I waited for them to finish their routine, their finale being a human pyramid with the top person smiling wide into the camera on the dronewaving their hands, as the fight between the two men finished with one of the men stabbing the other in the eye.
The young man in the cheerleading skirt on top of the pyramid did a back flip off his friends and paraded down to where the man collapsed in the dirt, ragged and bleeding.
“Having trouble keeping stains out of white t-shirts like this one?” The drone junkie gestured to the man bleeding on the ground. “Try Oxymo’s newest stain remover, Wipeaway!” He picked up a bottle of spray and spritzed it on the now dead body before holding it up to the camera. “This bad boy can get any stubborn stain out, including blood! And it’s twenty percent off until March!”
“Hello!” I waved to them.
The drone junkie beamed a huge smile and strode over to me, beckoning the drone to follow him. “And here we have Delphine De Astor, once a good girl, now a heartless Soulless. Delphine, have you tried Oxymo’s newest stain remover Wipeaway?”
“I think my house cleaner has.”
“Of course she has! Look how spotless your clothing is.” He gestured to my shirt. “Nine days in the Execution Battle and not a single silly stain. Delphine De Astor may not survive the Execution Battle, just as no blotch will survive Oxymo’s newest stain remover Wipeaway.”
